RARELY WILL WE DISCUSS POLITICS, religion, or college football in polite company, because we want to keep the conversation nice and agreeable. I thought everyone did things this way until I met my mother-in-law, a Yankee from Upstate New York. The best part of having a Yankee mother-in-law is that you always know where you stand, and the worst part is that you always know where you stand.
Once I settled in, I found comfort in not needing to put on airs with her. I only knew her a few short years before she passed, but I made a promise to myself—that my kids would know her through the stories I remembered of her and the stories I’d heard from others.
When my kids’ grandmother was due with their father on Christmas Eve 1973, and he still hadn’t arrived on New Year’s Eve, she told her husband, “Take me dancing!” She danced the night away and birthed the first baby born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1974. Their grandmother was a pragmatic nurse who worked in the OR, so she wasn’t easily distracted, and she was definitely not starstruck when a future Hall of Fame, all-star quarterback came in. The mouthy football player was met with a reality check because their grandmother knew kindness wouldn’t work. She told him to cut the crap because he was acting like a donkey’s butt, and he needed to straighten up. He said, “Yes, ma’am,” and was the gentleman I’m sure his mama raised him to be.
When my kids are ready, I’ll share her take on “girls’ trips.” “You do what you want when you get married,” she told me, “but I never went on girls’ trips.” She went on to explain: “I remember I was so excited to go on one to the beach, but I was miserable the whole time.” I asked why and she said, “All they did was complain about their husbands and their kids. It was like a contest to see who had it the worst at home. If you start looking for ways to complain about your husband,” she told me, “then you’ll find plenty.”
Had she been Southern, the next time she was invited to go on the trip she would have made up an excuse, and the next time made up another excuse, then another, and eventually the ladies would have stopped asking and no one would have been any wiser. But she was not Southern, so when she was invited, she said, “Thank you so much for the invitation. I work long days at the hospital and cannot go on a girls’ trip if all we’re going to do is complain about our families.” I’m sure there are husbands that would have been mortified by her candor, but not my father-in-law. He would smile and grin with each story. He may not have known exactly what he was getting into when he married her, but he had a good idea.
Most Southern women drop subtle hints to their boyfriends about hoping to get engaged and wondering when the big event will happen: “Oh, I’d love a spring wedding, but we’d have to start planning now.” Or “Mary Elizabeth just got engaged; maybe that will be me one day…” Not my mother-in-law. She got right to the point. After months of a long-distance relationship, she got off that plane and told her boyfriend, “If we’re not engaged by the time I leave, I’m not coming back.” Her Biloxi boyfriend loved her spunk. He put his arm around her shoulders and told her, “Well, let’s go find you a ring.”
She never met a bush worth beating around in her life. While other in-laws would say, “Let me share this recipe with you—you might like it,” mine said, “Ellen, if Tim ever wants a chocolate cake, the best recipe is on the back of the Swans Down cake flour box.” She was right. I substituted hot coffee for the warm water, and it is the best chocolate cake recipe on planet Earth. The chocolate buttercream on the box is spot-on as well. You might as well make every recipe on that box.
She also bought each of her three children a Fannie Farmer cookbook. Unlike my mother with a Smithsonian level of cookbooks, she only needed one, and it was the Fannie Farmer. She told me point-blank, “If there is something of mine that you want to cook, it probably came from there.”
Each Christmas Eve, I pull out my Fannie Farmer cookbook and turn to the coffee mallow recipe. While the marshmallows are melting, I tell my kids about their Yankee grandmother who never killed anyone with kindness but would bend over backward to help her friends and family.
Years after she passed, I heard a group of women going through the phone book with all their grievances against their mothers-in-law! “Let me tell you what mine said,” followed by “Oh, that’s nothing compared to mine!” They were each trying to top each other in the My mother-in-law is worse than yours championship.
Once those ladies came up for air long enough, they asked me, “You know what we mean, right? Is yours horrible too?” but I couldn’t join in. I would give anything to have my Yankee mother-in-law back. It would mean that my husband still had his mom and that my kids would have two grandmothers. Even if I only had one more hour with her and right before the hour started, she called Tim to say, “Make sure Ellen eats because she gets really moody when she’s hungry!”
It wasn’t that easy when we first met, but we found our way. I was working at the Purple Parrot Cafe, which was the place to be in Hattiesburg. I can still see one of the doctors’ wives gliding into the restaurant. She looked like the cat that ate the canary and couldn’t wait to tell me that she ran into my new boyfriend’s mother at the gym. “Oh, you’ve got your hands full with that one,” she said. I asked what she meant, as Tim’s mother had been nothing but nice to me in our few interactions.
“Well, I asked her if she was excited about Tim dating you because you know we just love you.” As they should. I kill every customer at the restaurant with kindness. “And she told me that she didn’t see how you two would ever work out.” What? That doesn’t sound like the person I met. “Yes, she told me that she didn’t see you two working out.”
Tim asked his mother what she meant by all that and she said, “I didn’t mean anything by it except I don’t see how you two will work because she works all the time. That doesn’t mean I don’t like her or don’t want you to work out. It only means what I said.”
“Well, Mom, when you stay stuff like that in the South, it sounds like you don’t like her.”
“Well, I’m sorry. I’m still from Upstate New York where ‘I’m not sure how those two will work out’ means ‘I’m not sure how those two will work out.’”
Tim reported back to me his talk with his mother. He said, “Look, I’m sorry. My mother doesn’t sugarcoat anything. I know it can be hard and it may seem like she doesn’t like you, but she does. She just said the other day that she wished my brother could find someone like you.”
But I was confused. “Your brother is married.”
“I know,” he said, “and Mom said—and I quote—‘I wish your brother could find someone like Ellen.’”1
I never missed my mother-in-law more than the day I held my little boy, Nikolas (Nik) Skrmetti, for the first time. He was my second baby, and I was a more relaxed mother. I could enjoy this one. As soon as I put him in my arms, I felt him sink into me. I thought, This must be how she felt when she held her little boy.
I realized when I held him how generous she was when we first met. Holding my son, I understood how hard it must have been for my mother-in-law to let a new woman come into her son’s life. I hope that when I have a daughter-in-law, I can be as straight to the point as she was. I pray I love her, but more importantly, I pray she loves me. And if we don’t get along, I can always kill her with kindness.
1 Tim’s brother and his wife are now happily divorced and married to amazing people and still friends.